Income of single women

March 14, 2008 - 11:11am — nbruce

This data looks a bit dated, but it's interesting. There's a Consumer Expenses Survey that reports on the differences in income and spending between single men and women based on 1991-92 and 2001-02 surveys. I can't figure any other way to read it except that single women lost big time during the 1990s. In 91-92, they had virtually the same income in the 25-34 age group ($24,721 for women, $24,719 for men), but by 2001-02 it was $29,736 for single women and $38,936 for single men. It would seem that women who graduated in the 80s (the 1991-92 figures) did much better financially that women who graduated in the 90s (the 2001-02 figures). Or, I suppose you could say the 80s men did worse than the 90s. Any thoughts on why this happened?

Over all, the singles data reflects the older age and widowhood of women in everything from income to health care to home ownership, but in the breakouts by age, it's much less likely to be skewed by the longevity of women (i.e. many older single women work only part time or don't work at all, and they are more likely to own homes).
Here's the site:
http://stats.bls.gov/cex/anthology05/csxanth8.pdf